


There's Nowhere Else On Earth That I Would Rather Be

by CartWrite



Series: Taking Some Liberties [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale apologizes for that wanking bit, Crowley is an emotional mess, Crowley's pov, Desserts and temptations, First Time, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, dining out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 19:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20013646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CartWrite/pseuds/CartWrite
Summary: Aziraphale seemed lost in thought for a moment, then cleared his throat and sat up straight in his seat. “Crowley. We need to have a conversation. About the night before.”“Last night?” Crowley paused. “What happened last—”“No. The evening we, ah,” Aziraphale’s voice sank into a whisper, “switched bodies.”Oh.…Oh.Oh,bugger.*****After averting Armageddon, Aziraphale invites Crowley out to dinner to make a serious confession.The sequel toTaking The Liberty, in which Aziraphale takes advantage of his time alone in Crowley's body.





	There's Nowhere Else On Earth That I Would Rather Be

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! You don't need to have read the previous fic, [Taking The Liberty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19281634), to read this one. But its premise is problematic. And while I think this one is far less so, it is built upon that one for a foundation. So I think you can safely extend the problematic warning to this one. 
> 
> The spirit of footnotes live on in this fic in parenthesis.

His angel was out of sorts.

Likely Aziraphale had been out of sorts for some time, but it seemed like now it was in a whole new way, at least since the business with averting Armageddon. Probably he was having some of the same employment – or rather unemployment – anxiety Crowley was. And since it seemed everyone on both sides was off stewing, there was no sign of it ending any time soon.

And of course She wasn’t interfering.

Which some celestial beings of a now-contested nature might worry about. Since choosing to not interfere was a choice, wasn’t it? Had God been the one to set Crowley, Aziraphale, et al., up like dominoes to prevent the Apocalypse? If she’d been in favor of total ecclesiastical war, wouldn’t she have flicked them aside and kept it going? God’s refusal to stop the earthly side of the matter might have meant that her support was one hundred percent behind them.

It could also have meant that she’d been in the middle of a good episode of EastEnders and hadn’t bothered to look up.

Crowley slumped further into the restaurant’s padded dining chair. If it wouldn’t have embarrassed his companion, he would’ve put his feet up. “It’s best not to speculate.”

Aziraphale, in the middle of one of his favorite restaurants and with an artfully-crafted and expensive meal in front of him, frowned at his untouched food. His collar had gone slightly askew.

Crowley couldn’t stand the silence. “Since it all happened, I’ve been getting into meditation.”*

(*He’d downloaded an app which had directed him to breathe for five minutes before demanding his credit card information, an exorbitant yearly fee, and a full personality profile which its disclaimer then _promised to sell to others_. Crowley had been so impressed, he’d mentally drafted a memo to send downstairs before remembering they weren’t on speaking terms.)

“Ah. Oh? Eastern philosophy and all of that?” Aziraphale toyed with his line-caught sea bass in dill sauce. He hadn’t eaten a bite. “How’s it going?”

“Dunno. Mostly it’s ‘sit and be quiet and don’t think of anything.’” Crowley frowned across the restaurant table. Aziraphale loved food. As a rule his angel never stuffed himself, of course not, he wasn’t a _glutton_ , but he loved to taste. Even at his fullest, he could always be coaxed to sample a little dessert from the end of Crowley’s spoon. “Or it’s all about being present. Like don’t worry about the past or the future. Just. Like. Be here. Eating your fish.”

Aziraphale’s fork poked at it. “Not worrying. That sounds appealing.” He propped his elbow on the table and leaned his chin in his hand.

That worried Crowley; Aziraphale could be flexible about many things, but fine dining etiquette wasn’t one of them. Crowley took out his worry on his own truffled mozzarella over blackened beef or somesuch nonsense. He hadn’t really looked at the menu when he’d ordered; he got most of his dinnertime enjoyment from watching Aziraphale, conversation, and the wine. Now the food seemed pointless. He put down the fork on his plate. “Do you want to go?”

“Hm?” Aziraphale’s brows knit. He took his elbow off the table and glanced guiltily around the fancy dining room. “Oh. No. I—I promised I’d treat you to dinner. I…” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then cleared his throat and sat up straight in his seat. “Crowley. We need to have a conversation. About the night before.”

“Last night?” Crowley paused. “What happened last—”

“No. The evening we, ah,” Aziraphale’s voice sank into a whisper, “switched bodies.”

Oh.

…Oh.

Oh, _bugger._

Crowley had thought that Aziraphale wearing his pale blue bow tie with gold speckles had been a nod to the ritzyness of the restaurant. But no, it was something much worse: a prosecutor’s uniform. Crowley bought himself some time by drinking an entire glass of wine.

Aziraphale idly shredded his fish with his fork while he watched Crowley drink.

Crowley finished his glass. He took a breath. He abandoned speech, grabbed the bottle of Chateau Margaux which was now mysteriously full again, refilled his glass, and drank this down, too.

Aziraphale waited.

As Crowley drank, he considered bolting for the door. But after his third – fourth? – glass of very passable red wine while Aziraphale watched in silence, the alcohol began to blunt the worst edges of his emotions.

A waiter shimmered into existence beside them, as only the waiters in ultra-fancy restaurants can. He looked from their full plates to the dribble of expensive wine on Crowley’s chin. “How is everything this evening…?”

“Go away and let me enjoy my last meal in peace,” Crowley hissed at him. Just for fun, he arranged it so a bit of uneven carpet snagged the retreating waiter’s shoe.

Somehow the waiter recovered his footing before he fell.

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Last meal? I suppose it makes sense it’d be a liquid one.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. He was good at it; he could roll his eyes in ways that made humans flinch. “Look, angel, I’ve never been dumped before.” Except the falling bit. That sort of counted. “Can we skip the pleasantries and just plunge in the dagger?”

Aziraphale looked down at this knife and pushed it away. “No. That’s not—Crowley, I’m trying to confess what I did to you—er, your body. With your body?” He sat back. “Wait. What did you do with mine?”

Crowley poured himself another glass of wine. “Don’t act like you dunno.” He put both his elbows on the table as he drank. Aziraphale’s words penetrated slowly. He put down the glass. “…You did something to my body?”

“No!” Aziraphale said. Then he blinked. “Er. Yes.”

They contemplated each other across the table.

“What did you—” they both began at the same time, and stopped.

Crowley considered his next move. He was reminded of some of their early meetings, ages ago, when they’d both had to be cagey, because who knew what was being relayed to which of their superiors. “I mean there’s a lot you can do, y’know, with an entire night.”

“Agreed.” Aziraphale took the tiniest bite of fish. “That’s delicious,” he said, in the same tone one might use to report the death of a close loved one. He swallowed with seeming effort and put down his fork. “Ah. First, I wanted to be sure I’d gotten your walk down. You have a specific way of moving. I did fall over.”

“I smacked your head into a bookshelf. And the headboard,” Crowley admitted.

“Why?”

“Not delib’rately.” He stifled a burp. “By accident. Your shop and your flat are full of things. Cluttered. I don’t know how you get from one side to the other.”

Aziraphale regarded him with wide eyes. “You mentioned my headboard.”

“Urgk,” Crowley said.

“You were… in my bed?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley pointed a very pointy finger. “I didn’t even know you had one. I didn’t even know you slept!”

“I don’t. I do like to lie down and read occasionally.”

Crowley wriggled in his seat. Maybe angels weren’t liars, per se, but Aziraphale could be crowned the king of withholding key pieces of information. “Is that why you own four sets of flannel pyjamas?” Crowley had discovered them in Aziraphale’s bureau. He’d half expected it to be full of vests.

“They’re quite comfortable.” The angel frowned. “Did you go through my clothes?”

Aziraphale owned forty-seven bow ties, twelve in various tartan patterns. Crowley had tried on only five before deciding his favorite was a pearlescent pink with a very subtle paisley print. He’d untied and retied that one only a handful of times, the last two very slowly and in front of the mirror.

“No,” Crowley lied.

Aziraphale gave him a hard look.

“A little,” he admitted.

The angel cleared his throat. He looked down at his plate. “I, ah, may have changed your shirt.”

“D’you not like it? The black one?” He would burn it, Crowley decided. He was more than a little drunk now, but surely he could still be subtle, so he asked, “Which ones did you like best?”

Aziraphale smiled, but his eyes were sad. He found his own wine glass and swirled its contents. “Oh, my dear.”

He loved when Aziraphale called him that, even if it was just a flippant, meaningless endearment to the angel. Aziraphale loved everything, of course. But when he called Crowley that, it was easy to pretend that Aziraphale loved him _most_.

Crowley couldn’t afford to lose himself in the fantasy again just this minute. He steeled himself. Best to get out in front of it, he thought. Before he has a chance to drop the hammer, you drop it first. Control the narrative. “All right, look. I only skimmed them. Because I was curious. I didn’t end up reading much at all.” A hiccup interrupted him. “The journals. I didn’t find them for hours and hours. And when I did, I just. I skimmed. Until I realized.” And then he’d skimmed harder, looking for all the parts with the initial ‘C’ for Crowley. There were rather a lot of them, and to Crowley’s satisfaction, most of them beyond the first millennia had been kind.*

(*Aziraphale’s looping script at one point noted that “C. has quite a lively sense of humor!” Crowley had had to stop for a moment and clutch the journal to his chest. He’d put it down to one too many Jammie Dodgers.)

Aziraphale’s shoulders stiffened. “You… found my memoirs?”

It hadn’t been easy. He’d had to break into a wall safe, one suspiciously like the one Crowley himself owned, to do it. And then he’d had to be careful not to get crumbs all over the volumes, because there’d been something about being in Aziraphale’s body that made hot cocoa and biscuits a necessary accompaniment to reading. “Well. A bit.”

“Those are private,” Aziraphale said.

“Oh?” Crowley asked innocently, casually, with an absolutely straight face.

“What did I say in them? It’s been a while since I’ve worked on them. I do hope I captured some of the—oh, not that it matters.” Aziraphale’s face fell. “I doubt they were even readable.”

“Ohh, pfft. They’re page-turners. You could get ‘em published. Just say it’s fiction.” Partway through the argument, Crowley realized he might be tipping his hand. But he would say anything to erase the misery on Aziraphale’s face. “Change a few identifying details. You’d be on the bestseller list.”

Aziraphale’s eyes closed.

 _No,_ Crowley thought. _Please._ He hunted for something else, anything. “Not that lists matter. Plenty of good literature out there, never sold much. You know that. Or. S’all right if you write it just for you—”

“Please stop.”

Crowley broke off.

Aziraphale opened his eyes, took a sip of wine, and set down his glass. “You can’t be so kind to me when I’ve done something that may well be unforgiveable.”

Crowley’s defense of his journal-reading collapsed. He peered at his angel.

As Aziraphale spoke, he arranged and straightened his silverware on either side of his plate. “You see. That night. I thought it might be our last night in existence. I used this opportunity to tell myself certain…” He lost steam. “I used your voice to tell myself things I wished to hear.”

Crowley leaned in until the table hit him in the chest. “Like what?” he croaked.

Aziraphale folded his napkin into ever-smaller rectangles. “There was a lot of tension at the time. Or at least, I felt a lot of tension. I felt—a great deal. And somehow I became convinced…” He paused. “I convinced myself. That you would not mind it if I…” He paused again, but kept folding the napkin until he had to bend the laws of physics to keep folding it, and only spoke again when the napkin had become invisible to the human eye. “Pursued an intimate physical release with your, er, person.”

Crowley’s mouth opened. But surely Aziraphale wasn’t suggesting what it sounded like he was suggesting. “You had a practice bath in regular water before the dip downstairs?”

Aziraphale leaned over the table. The candlelit centerpiece burned between them. In a voice almost as small as the imperceptible napkin, he said, “ _I had a wank_.”

Crowley sat back and sobered up so fast, the wine overflowed the bottle and sloshed a red puddle on the table.

Aziraphale slumped back in his chair. He flicked his wrist and unfolded the napkin back into a perceptible shape. “I do realize that I did not have your permission. And I could’ve picked up the telephone, could’ve called, but I did not. I simply did not,” he explained to the napkin, the plate, the wine glass. “I had a thousand arguments for why I should’ve prevented myself from—taking liberties—with your person. Then I made louder, more convincing arguments to myself in favor. Since then, I’ve examined it from every angle. Ultimately? I did what I did because I wanted to. It was unconscionable and selfish of me, and I have no excuses.” He finally looked at Crowley, tentatively, as if he expected to be incinerated by his glare. “I humbly, deeply apologize. I am sorry.”

Crowley gaped like a fish.

A few seconds later, Aziraphale lowered his gaze. “I understand. I do hope that someday, you can find it in yourself to forgive me.” A waiter shimmered by. The angel paid their exorbitant bill, and with one last bow of his curly-haired head, he left the restaurant, head down, shoulders hunched.

Crowley continued to sit there, open-mouthed, until a waiter shimmered into being next to him.

“Excuse me, sir? Are you all right?”

The world’s most gobsmacked demon forced himself to blink and face the man.

Was he all right? No, Crowley decided quickly, before his thoughts were again swept away in a current of _he likes that? Aziraphale likes that, he said he wanted to, what exactly did he do, WHAT DID IT MEAN, he said he’d felt a great deal, what did that mean, was it his first time, is he all over London doing that sort of thing, what exactly had he done, what did it MEAN, he’d apologized so it must’ve been fairly indecent, or was it, could angels even do that, they must be able to, that’s why the bed had been so nicely made afterward, what had the arguments for and against been, WHAT PRECISELY DID HE DO, did he ever want to do it again, did he want Crowley to—_

“Sir?” the waiter prompted.

Crowley proffered a heavy black metal credit card of the variety usually only owned by stockbrokers. “Listen, I’m going to need one of each of your desserts in to-go boxes. Add on a nice tip for yourself, yeah?” he added, half because he liked looking important, and half because Aziraphale would’ve wanted him to.

*****

Aziraphale answered on the third knock. He let Crowley into the shop without a word, and led the way up to his flat above just as quietly, where he had a kettle already on. “Tea?”

“Why not,” Crowley said, as his heart tried to hammer its way through his chest.

Out of his coat and vest and in only his shirtsleeves, trousers, and socks, Aziraphale should’ve looked relaxed. But instead, he seemed deflated. He glanced over at the sleek black boxes Crowley had brought, but didn’t ask what they were.

Crowley sprawled down in one of the small kitchen table’s two chairs and forced himself to relax. “Do you have a fork and a spoon?”

Aziraphale brought over a pair and set them down on the table before he went back to bustle at the counter. He seemed to breathe easier the further away he was.

Couldn’t have that. “Was it nice, though?”

Aziraphale switched off the kettle. “What? The, ah, the—”

“The wank,” Crowley supplied.

A teacup rattled against the counter.

“Because now I’ve thought about it? I was pretty relaxed when we switched back. I put that down to, you know, the forces of Heaven and Hell momentarily put off, though. But maybe the wanking—”

Aziraphale whirled around. “Stop saying that.”

“You’re the one who did it,” Crowley pointed out.

“And I am very sorry!”

“About the wanking?” Crowley popped open the first sleek black to-go box and revealed multi-colored dollops of mousse garnished with strange shavings of something or other, only a little jostled and melted by the trip over. “Or that you didn’t ask?”

“I…” Aziraphale’s attention dropped to the mousse trio, then back up to Crowley.

Very slowly, Crowley picked up the spoon and dipped it into the dessert.

Aziraphale forged on. “I. I violated you. I transgressed against our friendship. You trusted me, and I—”

Crowley licked pink mousse off the spoon with a forked tongue. It tasted of passionfruit.

Aziraphale lost his ability to speak. He turned back to the tea.

Crowley swallowed. “Because, see, I wonder if part of the reason you didn’t ask—”

“Don’t.” Aziraphale shook his head.

Crowley paused. For a moment he considered following his angel’s directive. He could stop. They could forget. They could go on as they had before, mostly. _But what if it’s all different now,_ some small, strangled voice inside him screamed before Crowley stamped it back down.

Hope was a terrible weakness, for a demon.

He dipped his spoon into the dollop of mint green mousse and went on. “You know I’d say yes.” The mint green mousse tasted like limes. Unexpected, delicious. “And then it would have to be a Thing. Or at least it would be, for me.” He had another spoonful, licked his lips.

Aziraphale had gone very still.

Crowley tried the yellow mousse. Pineapple and cinnamon? Odd, but not bad either. “It’s already been a Thing for a while now, for me, actually.” He swallowed. The mousse felt too thick. What else had they boxed up for him? “So if you were just curious, but not into the whole—Thingness—of the situation, well. That’s all right,” Crowley said, a minimum of wobble in his voice. But he felt sick the moment he said it. “Or rather, that’s not all right with me. But it is what it is.” The next box held a thin piece of pistachio cheesecake. He knocked it aside. “But if a wank _is_ all it was to you, I wish you wouldn’t have told me about it.” He opened the next one. A decadent drizzle-covered slice of chocolate cake. It’d do, he decided. “Like I’m some coat in a charity shop. Picked up, tried on, put back.” He couldn’t look at Aziraphale. “You want to put me on, all right, but I’m not—you can’t just—” Crowley’s voice caught. He took a bite of cake instead. It tasted incredible, and at the same time, like ashes. 

From somewhere in the cozy clutter of Aziraphale’s flat, a clock ticked.

A steaming teacup appeared at Crowley’s elbow. Aziraphale lowered himself into the seat beside him, his own cup in hand. The kitchen table had two chairs, but it was clearly a table used by one. They sat close. The steam from the teacups drifted up and mingled together.

Crowley shoveled in another bite of cake.

“Is that good?” Aziraphale asked.

“Michelin star good,” Crowley muttered around his mouthful.

“May I… have a taste?”

Crowley paused, the fork halfway back to his mouth. He changed direction, held it out.

Aziraphale bent his head to sample the bite off Crowley’s fork. As his lips closed around the mouthful, his eyelids fluttered shut, just for a moment.

Crowley swallowed.

“It is good,” Aziraphale pronounced. He flashed Crowley a hint of a smile.

Traitorous bastard that it was, Crowley’s heart leapt.

Aziraphale didn’t speak for a while. The tea cooled. He took a sip. “I’ve spent the last six thousand years assuring myself that I was a certain type of being. That I couldn’t have certain things. So it must not be possible for me to want them. But what you tell yourself is true… and what is actually true. They’re quite often separate things, aren’t they?”

It wasn’t a question. “Suppose so?” Crowley offered nonetheless.

“It can be difficult to reconcile. And of course, before, if one had even let oneself consider certain arrangements, the threat of angering our respective sides… it would have been a significant deterrent.” He put down his cup. “But we’ve upset that apple cart, haven’t we.”

“They might well come back any day and decide to try boiling and roasting us again no matter what we do,” Crowley added. “Or maybe God’s decided to invisibly stamp our foreheads ‘Hands Off.’ Or everyone will find it less embarrassing to forget we’re still here, and they’ll just erase us from all the rosters.” The last was the one Crowley dared to hope for. But since it had all happened, neither of them had spoken so plainly of possible future consequences. Thinking about it at length made Crowley feel a bit like one of his houseplants.

“Whatever will we be then?” Aziraphale asked.

“Dunno,” Crowley answered.

Sitting on the same side of Aziraphale’s kitchen table, they shared a glance, and rueful smiles.

Aziraphale had the smallest crumb of chocolate cake on his lip.

Crowley brushed it off with the pad of his thumb, or would have, but Aziraphale tilted his chin so that Crowley cupped his jaw.

“It wasn’t a matter of curiosity,” Aziraphale said, his eyes bright. “Not that I wasn’t curious. But. You’re very dear to me.”

Crowley swallowed. “I just figure. You know. It’s.” His voice deserted him. He bridged the distance between them and kissed Aziraphale.

In a nearby park, a new batch of unexpected blossoms opened on trees. The cold evening wind turned into a light breeze carrying the scent of the sea. On the nearest street corner, a busker who only ever played the same three Ed Sheeran songs suddenly rose and burst into a West End-worthy rendition of My Fair Lady’s _The Street Where You Live._

Crowley felt shivery and tingly all over. When he opened his eyes, he found a single white feather clinging to his lapel.

Aziraphale blushed and tried to pluck it away.

Crowley got to it first. It was tiny; just a bit of fluff, really, but softer than the softest flannel pyjamas. Softer than the look on Aziraphale’s face.

“Got a—a bit excited,” Aziraphale stammered.

Crowley wanted to see him more than a bit excited, he realized. “The, uh, the physical stuff? You do that? You like that.” He hadn’t found any mention of that in the journals. Crowley would’ve remembered those bits, and copied them down.

“Well. Yes. I suppose. Though it’s been a, ah, rather solitary pursuit.” Aziraphale blinked. “I suppose you..?” His eyes widened. “With humans?”

“Uh, not really,” Crowley said.*

(*Twice, once per set of genitals. Just to get a handle on the mechanics of the whole business. The words _tedious_ and _squidgy_ had come to mind both times, and he’d frankly found it far easier and much less upsetting to find a pair of humans and nudge them together instead. Whereas wanking was pleasant in just about any form. But it was also very same-y, and with the invention of the after-hours nightclub and the written word, Crowley had mostly retired the pursuit.)

Aziraphale nodded. “There was one incident in a private Gentleman’s Club—it was—illuminating—but nothing much happened, it was a terrible misunderstanding.” He waved it away. “However. The idea of being, er, physically together. Well. With you, it strikes me as intriguing.”

“Intriguing?” Crowley leaned in. He could be intriguing. He could be made of cloaks and daggers and shadows, if that’s what it took.

“Yes.” Aziraphale nodded again. He swallowed and tilted his chin upward. “I think it’s because I’m quite in love with you.”

Crowley’s throat felt full of gravel. His heart felt full to bursting. He wanted to scream and vomit and whoop for joy all at the same time. “Nrggnk,” he said instead.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Sod it,” Crowley said, seized Aziraphale by the shoulders, and kissed him until the tea had gone cold, the ice cream in the unopened fifth dessert box had melted into a raspberry puddle, and the busker on the corner wept his way through nevertheless gorgeous renditions of Whitney Houston’s _I Will Always Love You,_ Sinead O’Connor’s _Nothing Compares 2U,_ and Bryan Adams’s _Everything I Do (I Do It For You)._

Aziraphale’s curls were as soft as feathers. His lips tasted of the tea he’d made, always with too much milk and sugar for Crowley’s taste. But now, Crowley appreciated the extra sweetness.

“This,” Aziraphale gasped, momentarily interrupting them, “doesn’t excuse what I’ve done, do you understand?”

“Right,” Crowley said. He decided he was ready to try the whole open-mouthed kissing bit, and to his delight it went even better than their first few kisses.

Aziraphale eventually broke off again. “I knew it was wrong. I simply didn’t stop to consider—and I thought at the time we might actually die. And I didn’t realize.” His gaze dropped to Crowley’s lips, which might’ve been as kiss-reddened as his own, and back up. “You mean the world to me. Really, I am very sorry—”

Dealing with another six thousand years of guilty apologies sounded like another sort of punishment. “Make it up to me?” Crowley suggested.

Aziraphale brightened.

*****

The blush went from Aziraphale’s ears all the way down to his chest. “You’re sure you don’t want to switch bodies? To make things fair.”

Crowley had thought he’d understood lust. “Nrgh,” he said.

“It would be more of a re-creation of that night.” With the coverlet pulled back, Aziraphale reclined on his soft flannel sheets. A fluffy feather pillow propped up his head.

Crowley stared. After a while, he took off his sunglasses.

Aziraphale was beautiful. He was just what Crowley would’ve imagined, if he’d imagined it. Which he hadn’t really. Not for a few millennia, anyway.

Though Aziraphale blushed, the angel didn’t try to hide himself. He was as pale as cream except where he blushed pink. His appetite filled out his curves in an extraordinarily appealing way, with softness around his midsection and thighs that would’ve driven classical painters to their canvases. He had a nicely broad chest and shoulders. His cock was thick and rosy, rising up out of a tidy shock of blonde curls.

Crowley put his sunglasses down on Aziraphale’s night table. Or tried to; he missed. They tumbled to the carpet. He didn’t bother to go after them.

“Is… this all? Would you just like to look?” Aziraphale asked.

 _Just look?_ He would’ve repeated it back to Aziraphale with a side order of disbelief, but Crowley was having trouble keeping his legs underneath him. He focused long enough to sit on the edge of the bed. _Just look,_ he thought again, baffled. He wanted that, surely, but more than that, too. He wanted everything. How had it never occurred to Crowley while in Aziraphale’s body that Aziraphale indulged in all sorts of physical pleasures? That he might happily be invited to indulge as well?

“I don’t mean to be rude, my dear, but if I’m going to submit my body, er, to your will, I’ll need a bit of direction.”

“Oh. Right.” Crowley nodded. Aziraphale had a freckle on his knee. Why had he never known this? How come he hadn’t gotten the idea to look for freckles when he’d been the one in that body?

“Would you like to touch me?” Aziraphale offered. “Or I could touch you? I imagine you know more ways to do it than I do. But I have done some reading.”

“Mnhmn,” Crowley said.

The thing was—

The thing was.

The thing.

The.

“Are you all right, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked.

The thing _was_ that he hadn’t been prepared for this. In Crowley’s wildest fantasies of running off to another solar system and setting up the Alpha Centaurian equivalent of a cottage for two, he hadn’t gotten around to daring to hope for a certain angel being in love with him, much less said angel wanting to get his kit off. Crowley had thought about riding the tails of comets and how many books they could miracle away together.*

(*Theoretically, all of them.)

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s worried face hovered into view. “Perhaps you’d better lie down.”

“Mm? Oh, yeah, right. Cheers,” he said, and wouldn’t you know it? Aziraphale had been right. Aziraphale’s cozy bed was just the thing to keep him from collapsing. And it felt ever so nice when strong hands helped him off with his boots.

Aziraphale laid back down next to him. “It’s been a rather long day. We could just—have a nap? That’s it, a lovely nap, set us both right as rain.”

Crowley rolled onto his side and tucked his face against Aziraphale’s bare shoulder. His skin was warm and smelled just the way he remembered, because Crowley had gotten hints of it over a long six thousand years, and had also spent a portion of the time in Aziraphale’s body memorizing the scent. His whole body was warm where it touched Aziraphale. For a moment Crowley thought he might burn him, a demon touching an angel so familiarly—but no, it was just the warmth of skin against skin, earthly and miraculous. When Aziraphale took him into his arms, Crowley shook and melted into him.

“There, there. You’re all right,” Aziraphale murmured into Crowley’s hair.

Crowley felt so pathetic he wanted to spit, and so grateful he wanted to whimper. As it was, his eyes threatened to do that slow leaking thing at the edges of their own accord again and, _no_ , thank you. Love was _horrible_ and _wonderful_ , and how on earth did anyone stand this without clawing their skin off or going mad or writing embarrassingly earnest poetry? “‘Course I’m all right,” he finally ground out. “You don’t have to pretend to sleep.”

Aziraphale’s eyelashes fanned against his cheeks. He didn’t open his eyes. “Nonsense. A nap sounds positively refreshing.”

The quiet somehow made it all easier. Crowley pulled himself together. He listened to Aziraphale’s quiet, even breaths and studied him. “Do you even know how to do it? Sleep.”

Aziraphale’s right eye edged open. “I’m sure I can figure it out.” It closed again.

Crowley shifted in their embrace. As he did, their feet tangled together. But Crowley was still wearing his socks. With the aid of pointy, inhumanly flexible toes, he wriggled out of them, kicked them aside. That felt better; his bare ankles nestled against Aziraphale’s. And with his angel’s eyes closed, it was easy to just lie there and drink him in, every last little detail.

 _I have loved you for ages,_ Crowley couldn’t bring himself to say. Instead, he kissed Aziraphale’s cheek. He dropped kisses on his lips, his chin, the glorious curve of his neck. 

“Oh, Crowley, I’m having the loveliest dream,” Aziraphale sighed.

Now that the world wasn’t spinning as much, and now that Aziraphale’s mouth curved into a surprised little “oh” of pleasure, Crowley found that touching Aziraphale was necessary. He cupped his shoulder, traced it to Aziraphale’s elbow, followed that over his forearm and to a soft, strong hand that laced fingers with Crowley’s. He bent and pressed a kiss to the back of Aziraphale’s hand, turned it over and kissed his palm.

“I’ve never dreamed before,” Aziraphale whispered. “It’s wonderful.”

If they ever did go to Alpha Centauri, Crowley decided, they would take Aziraphale’s shop and flat. But especially his bedroom and the bed, and they would spend at least the first half of eternity right where they were now. Crowley kissed each one of his fingers in turn, before returning his hand to Aziraphale’s side. Goosebumps rose up on Aziraphale’s arm and Crowley skated his knuckles across them.

Aziraphale shivered, but not from cold. He surged against Crowley in a thoroughly undreamlike manner. His lips found Crowley’s, the side of his jaw, his mouth. “Please,” he whispered between kisses, “may I touch you?”

 _You are,_ Crowley thought, but once he murmured his assent he discovered that there were all sorts of places Aziraphale could’ve been touching him; unexpected places like his collarbones, his earlobes, thighs, the backs of his knees—

His hips rocked forward at just the right moment, and Aziraphale touched him there, too.

_Oh._

Neither the words _tedious_ nor _squidgy_ entered his mind. In fact no words had, but if he could translate the feeling, it would’ve been close to _hhurngh yes now please oh yes._ Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s wrist and kept him there, kept the heat and pressure of his angel’s hand right against his erection, but his jeans were tight and constricting and Crowley wanted out of all his clothes five minutes ago. He loosened his scarf and tugged it off overhead.

“Let me help.” Aziraphale, eyes opened, undid the buttons on his shirt.

“I thought you were dreaming,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale looked the tiniest bit guilty. “Perhaps this is a lucid dream?”

Crowley considered teasing him. But he got distracted watching the deft unbuttoning of his own shirt, the skillful unbuckling of his belt, and the neat pop and _zippp!_ that opened his jeans.

“I did get a bit of practice last time,” Aziraphale said.

“So I see,” Crowley said. He lifted his shoulders. He wriggled and shimmied and soon he was as naked as Aziraphale, who lounged on his side and looked as delighted as if he were discovering the rarest first edition on Earth. Crowley shrugged. “Angel. You have seen it before.” Wait. He hadn’t specified. “Haven’t you?”

“Not like this.” Aziraphale’s eyes shone. “My dear, you’re… splendid.” 

Crowley felt naked in an entirely new way as he stretched out on the bed. _I will love you for ages more,_ he thought, _forever,_ and sealed the silent promise with a kiss.

He wasn’t sure what to do next, but then he didn’t need to think at all, just to feel, because Aziraphale knew just where to touch him. It was easy and natural to touch him back. They twined around each other like vines, and the bedroom became a symphony of groans and gasps and breathless laughter.

Crowley’s hips rose off the bed when Aziraphale’s tongue and fingertips teased his nipples. He rolled them over and rubbed himself obscenely against Aziraphale—only it didn’t feel obscene, and especially not when he stroked the length of Aziraphale’s cock and felt his angel shudder in his arms.

“Please,” Aziraphale moaned.

Crowley watched Aziraphale clutch at the sheets and at Crowley’s shoulders and hips. He watched how his lips opened in wordless cries of ecstasy, and his heels dug into the mattress. He reveled in the sheen of sweat on Aziraphale’s brow, and the greedy, desperate noises he made as he thrust himself into Crowley’s grasp.

And then Aziraphale said, “Hold on, dear, not just yet.” He snapped his fingers.

A disorienting moment later, Crowley found himself on his back in the bed, Aziraphale sitting astride him. “You could’ve just wrestled me into position, Angel.” Now there was a thought.

“No, I—we can go back to what we were just doing, of course, it was wonderful. But I wanted to try something, if you’re amenable?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley nodded. He would’ve agreed to just about anything Aziraphale wanted, so long as Aziraphale wanted to do it with him.

“Just let me…” Aziraphale began.

Crowley was only puzzled for the briefest of moments. He watched Aziraphale’s focused expression as he positioned himself, then ever-so-slowly sank down onto Crowley’s cock.

“My dear,” Aziraphale gasped.

From his position, Crowley could see the tiniest of motions, the way his Angel tensed and trembled above him. He bit his lip to stifle a shout as Aziraphale moved, and then he was fully inside Aziraphale, sheathed in him, and the pleasure of it shook him to his very core.

“Marvelous,” Aziraphale moaned. He rose up and lowered himself.

It did feel marvelous. Miraculous, even, and it got better still when Crowley held his hips and urged Aziraphale onward.

“Yes, dear, like that, it’s wonderful,” Aziraphale gasped. His breath hitched. He quivered and sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. His face twisted as if he were in pain.

“All right?” Crowley managed, but just barely. Every move pushed him closer and closer to the brink, but more important than his own pleasure was witnessing every tremble of Aziraphale’s lip, every toss of his curls, the tensing of his thighs as he moved, the way his hard and leaking cock bobbed between them until Crowley took hold of it once more.

“Please,” Aziraphale begged.

“Everything, Angel,” Crowley promised, stroking Aziraphale’s cock the way he himself preferred it. “I’ll give you—everything.”

Aziraphale fell forward. “Crowley,” he cried out and shuddered as he came.

Crowley stroked him through it. He willed his eyes to stay open, his memory to record every detail, but it proved impossible. He was close himself, so close.

And then Aziraphale began to move again above him. The light made his curls a tousled halo. “You are perfect, my dear,” he purred. 

“Angel,” Crowley gasped. He came so hard, he saw stars. Mostly galaxies he had had a hand in creating. But a few strange ones, too, and their strangeness made him wonder how many secrets the wide and wonderful universe still held for him.

For them.

Gradually, Crowley came back to himself. His racing heart calmed. His entire body felt loose and relaxed, his limbs heavy, but in the most pleasant way. Aziraphale was a weight against his chest, but Crowley welcomed it. He couldn’t recall being happier. He didn’t even mind the squidgyness.*

(*It was considerable.)

Something brushed his forehead.

Crowley opened his eyes to—a winter wonderland? “Aziraphale.”

“Hm?” Aziraphale stirred from his own reverie.

They uncoupled and took in the changed landscape.

Fine white feathers covered the bedroom like a blanket of snow. A few of the smallest still drifted in the air like dust motes in sunbeams.

Crowley raised his head just long enough to take in the full extent of the feathering. He let it drop back onto the pillow. “Did you do this?”

Aziraphale blushed and ducked his head. “I told you, I get a bit excited.”

“More than a bit.”

“Well, can you blame me?”

“No,” Crowley said. He opened his arms and Aziraphale nestled back into his embrace. A tiny puff of a feather floated by. Crowley blew it towards the window, which he willed open. The feather drifted out on a pleasant breeze that smelled of the sea and fresh flowers.

On the street corner outside, a confrontation between the busker and two police officers over reported lewd behavior resolved itself with all three bursting into a heartfelt round of Queen’s _Las Palabras De Amor._

From inside Aziraphale’s bedroom, they listened to the music. The breeze drifted in and stirred the feathers. Crowley held Aziraphale and noticed as his angel’s breath ticked over into the deep, even cadence of sleep.

Crowley considered stopping time.

*****

He woke up with the chill and the rosy half-light of dawn coming in through the window. He’d been tucked under the covers.

Next to him, Aziraphale’s quill pen scritch-scratched elegant script into a gilt-edged journal balanced in his lap. He stopped every few words to dip the pen into a little bottle of ink he held in the opposite hand. He wore a pair of fall leaf patterned flannel pyjamas.

Crowley watched the quill bob up and down, left and right. It was hypnotic.

“I haven’t written down much for the last ten years or so. There’s a lot to get through. A lot to remember,” Aziraphale explained. His pen moved on, uninterrupted by the speech.

Crowley shifted. He tugged down the covers, and discovered he’d been dressed in a pair of gray flannel pyjamas. Embroidered snakes slithered in a pattern along the cuffs. 

“I didn’t want you to get cold. And, I.” Aziraphale paused his writing. He glanced over. “Are you all right, my dear? I’m afraid I rather took your suggestion last night and ran with it. I do hope I wasn’t too—forward.”

“Nah,” Crowley said. He liked the little snake pattern, actually. He examined it so that he wouldn’t have to look at the journal that matched the set in Aziraphale’s safe. “About my reading your journals. Your memoirs,” he corrected himself. “Er. Sorry.”

“You’re forgiven, of course.” Aziraphale’s nib dipped back into the ink. “If you can forgive me—”

Crowley slid his ankle underneath Aziraphale’s legs. “No need to start that again, Angel.”

Aziraphale smiled into his journal. His brow creased. “Why _did_ you read them? Of all the things you could’ve spent what might’ve been our last night on earth doing.”

Crowley was a good liar. He considered a few, and a few half-truths. He discarded them. “Don’t think it’s too strange, wanting to spend your last night reading your favorite story.”

It took Aziraphale a moment. But when he got it, Aziraphale’s smile lit his face like the sunrise. “Oh. Oh, Crowley.”

“I am biased. I’m in a lot of it,” Crowley admitted. He basked in the warmth of Aziraphale’s love and his bed.

“I know,” said Aziraphale. “I like some of your bits the best.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Crowley raised his eyebrows. He wondered where his sunglasses had gotten to. He decided he could find them later when Aziraphale put his journal aside and slid down underneath the covers with him.

*****

They did not spend half an eternity in Aziraphale’s bed. Just every night after that.

In the mornings, they had breakfast. Crowley often went out to get said breakfast, and came back to Aziraphale still dozing, or pretending to doze, under the covers.

“Perfection,” Aziraphale gushed at him, as they tucked into fresh crepes with strawberry sauce.

Crowley licked sauce off his fingers, and Aziraphale’s, too. He’d make outrageous claims about having driven them over from Paris, or having made them himself. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale told Crowley before they’d part for the day, Aziraphale to run the bookshop and continue his trade as a now independent doer of good deeds, Crowley to his flat to threaten the houseplants. Then it was off to liaise with shady occultists and religious figures who claimed to know ways in which one might protect themselves against the meddlesome forces of Heaven and Hell, just in case. In the afternoons it became his custom to stir up a little trouble. For old time’s sake.*

(*It took some doing, but Crowley obtained a copy of the meditation app’s customer list. He then subscribed all their email addresses and numbers to a variety of anxiety-inducing updates from CataztrophicAccidentz.co.uk, The Daily Mail, and more.*)(*Crowley did not remember that he himself was on the list until the first terrifying text messages arrived.)

In the evenings, they went for dinner, walks in the park. They went to museums and drove out to smallish galleries that barely had more than a few paintings in them. They went to see classic films and, half the time, ended up necking in the balcony.

Sometimes they went back to the shop and split a nice bottle of wine, or read from particularly silly books while they drank more wine, or told stories of their past exploits from all the times in the last six thousand years they’d been apart while they drank even more wine. They got in the habit of sleeping it off together afterward.

“Goodnight, dear,” Aziraphale whispered into his ear each time he turned out the light. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, Angel.” Aziraphale always slept in his pyjamas, but Crowley usually didn’t bother. The shared warmth was more than enough for him. 

Flurries of small white feathers were common. Medium and large white feathers, a little less so. There were black feathers, too, more and more often.

“You could move in a few of the plants,” Aziraphale suggested one morning over breakfast. “If you like.”

“Yeah?” Crowley buttered a scone and put it on Aziraphale’s plate.

Aziraphale picked it up. “Or all of them. And your things. If you like. Er. Only if you like,” he added, then took a bite.

 _Too much love will kill you_ , Freddie Mercury sang from the Bentley’s radio. Crowley still went to his flat, collected up his plants, and brought them over to Aziraphale’s, where miraculously each found its own perfectly shaped and lighted nook waiting to accept it.

“Don’t let the Corkscrew Albuca talk you into anything,” Crowley told his Angel.

“Which one is that one?”

“Little curly one. Blue pot. It’s him and the Golden King ficus you have to watch out for. They’re the instigators,” Crowley advised.

“I’m sure they’re lovely.”

They had Aziraphale wrapped around their stems within the week. Yet they flourished.

All of them.

*****

Epilogue.

Few people took much note of Mr. A.Z. Fell’s almost-always-closed bookshop in Soho. But those who did might’ve heard the laughter, seen the lights, and spotted the occasional feather drifting out of upstairs windows.

Yet each night on the corner nearby, near to dusk, an ever-widening collection of curious musicians collected. They’d all heard rumors about what happened there, of course, but only the ones who’d been before and experienced it truly believed. Those new to the corner waited a little sheepishly for what they were almost sure would be nothing. They left their instruments in their cases, shoved hands in pockets, made jokes.

And then—perhaps it was the light, or the way traffic ebbed, or simply a case of standing around amongst other musicians—but a moment came. As one, they brought out instruments, stood at attention, and exchanged wide-eyed glances as they played Puccini’s _O Soave Fanciulla_ with perfect pitch, timing, and harmony, a song that a not insignificant portion of the group had only ever heard snippets of in movies and advertisements.

After it ended, the spell broke. The musicians packed up their instruments, exchanged nods, and drifted off home.

Another pair sat on a bench on the opposite corner of the street, one that gave them a view of the gathering and of the lights in the bookshop’s upstairs windows. One of them wore the finest cashmere coat. Flies buzzed lazily around the other’s head. Pedestrian traffic parted around them, unseeing.

Lord Beelzebub folded her arms. She’d been thinking about getting a few more put on, just so she could fold those, too. “I haven’t heard nothin’. You?”

The Archangel Gabriel shook his head. “Not a peep.” He spread out on the bench, his thighs parted wide to take up as much space as possible. “We should probably stop coming.”

“Yeah.” Lord Beelzebub sniffed the air. “It’s gone bloody floral scented again. Disgusting.”

“Revolting,” Gabriel agreed.

“Unnatural,” she sneered.

Gabriel’s lip curled. “It’s so fucking gross.”

Lord Beelzebub joined him in a full-body shiver. Silence stretched between them. “Still,” she said.

Gabriel’s head tilted. “What’s that?”

She looked toward the lighted upstairs windows across the street. “I keep thinkin’. We just keep a watch out long enough…”

“We’ll learn something,” the Archangel finished.

Cars drove past.

“The music’s all right.” Lord Beelzebub leaned back on the bench. “I mean. I prefer listening to these soundtracks I got recorded from an industrial tool and dye shop.”

Gabriel’s arm, stretched across the back of the bench, didn’t quite reach her. “I’m a fan of John Phillips Sousa marches. But it could be worse. It’s almost nice to come here, take a break at the end of a long day.”

Lord Beelzebub snorted. “Nobody appreciates what it’s like, keeping it all going all the time. All the day to day admin. That’s half the reason to want a bloody war in the first place.”

Gabriel nodded. “At the end, you’ll either be incinerated or you’ll finally get a vacation.”

“It’s a win-win,” Lord Beelzebub agreed. “Well. Depending.”

The last of the streetlamps winked on. One of the upstairs lights across the street winked out.

“Same time tomorrow?” Gabriel asked.

She nodded. “We’ve gotta crack it eventually.”

“I’ll save you a seat, Bee.”

Lord Beelzebub’s chosen face wanted to do something funny. Her lips wanted to turn up at the corners. “See you then.”

The bench popped out of existence.

Not long after, the upstairs lights across the street went dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can follow me on tumblr at [thecartwrite](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thecartwrite). 
> 
> The title comes from My Fair Lady's The Street Where You Live, which I consider very much a Crowley-in-love kind of song. I imagined the love songs that happen on the corner to be sort of an outpouring of his feelings, too big to be contained so they just burst into the world through the nearest handy transmitters.


End file.
